Soccer-Peru to field reserves at high altitude against Bolivia

October 11, 2012|Reuters

LIMA, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Peru look set to send a team capable of withstanding the rarefied air high up in the Andes to face Bolivia in Friday's World Cup qualifier in La Paz.

The team that Peru's Uruguayan coach Sergio Markarian has been preparing in the Andean city of Cuzco 3,400 metres above sea level is completely different from that which held Argentina 1-1 in Lima last month.

None of Peru's foreign-based players like Claudio Pizarro, Paolo Guerrero, Jefferson Farfan or Juan Vargas are in the starting line-up, according to the leading Peruvian daily El Comercio's website (www.elcomercio.pe).

"The attitude and capacity of the team to play at this altitude was not too bad," Markarian told reporters after his team beat Cienciano, a Cuzco based first division club, 5-0 in a warm-up.

"Our evaluation (of the players) was physical and technical, we weren't concerned about the tactics because our priority is their physical response."

Peru need to win in Bolivia and against Paraguay in Asuncion next Tuesday, where they will field their big guns, if they are to stand any chance of reaching the finals for the first time since 1982.

The Peruvians, who have never won a qualifier in La Paz at 3,640 metres, will field a defensive line-up with a solitary striker in Andy Pando, the first division's top scorer who plays for Cuzco-based first division Real Garcilaso.

Peru are two from bottom of the South American group led by Argentina with three more points than Bolivia and Paraguay.

The teams that finish in the top four places in the nine-nation group will qualify for the finals in Brazil in 2014 while the fifth-placed team will go into a playoff for another berth against an Asian side. (Reporting by Rex Gowar in Buenos Aires, editing by Pritha Sarkar)